A rapid-fire barrage of 16 earthquakes slammed Southern California in less than 24 hours, reigniting terrifying fears that the “Big One” is getting ready to tear the region apart.

Along the remote coast where the San Andreas Fault meets the Cascadia subduction zone, earthquakes too small for humans to feel are sketching out a hidden map of danger. By tracking these tiny tremors,

Scientists say the temblor, which was followed by a magnitude 3.5 aftershock, is unlikely to lead to larger event.

By tracking swarms of very small earthquakes, seismologists are getting a new picture of the complex region where the San Andreas fault meets the Cascadia subduction zone, an area that could give rise to devastating major earthquakes.

The San Andreas Fault is the longest and fastest-moving, but over the next decade, Dr. Lucy Jones says it'll probably be one of the lesser-known faults that causes the most damage. CBS LA's Laurie Perez talks to Dr.

At this junction, the Pacific Plate moves northwest against the North American Plate, forming the San Andreas Fault, while the Gorda Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate. However, the geological interactions here are far more intricate than a simple three-plate model suggests.

Some of California's biggest earthquakes have occurred on lesser-known fault areas, including both the Ridgecrest quake and the magnitude 6.7 Northridge quake in 1994. And in the Bay Area, geologists have identified the Hayward Fault in the East Bay and the Rodgers Creek Fault in Sonoma County as having the potential to produce major quakes.

In earthquake country, the meandering paths of quake faults easily get seared into memory in the same way as a California freeway map. An earthquake fault is a fracture in the ground between two blocks of rock. They allow blocks of rock to move relative to ...